Stephen King’s IT Movie Review 2017

Over the last four decades, there have been so many Stephen Edwin King adaptations, most of them bad – that it’s quite easy to take them for granted. The prolific author of supernatural fiction, horror, suspense, and fantasy – is known for a solid cast and visual flair. This visual aspect is undeniably appealing and it is something that helps the director, Andy Muschietti, portray a clear world while channeling King’s boldness in showing the monstrous side of humankind.

In his adaptation of IT movie, the Argentinean director who also directed the effective 2013’s horror thriller mama brings a touch of widescreen gloss to King’s enduring horror-adventure. He makes it very much a ring-the-change update of the 1990 TV mini-series, with the state-of-the-art grisliness and ramped-up set pieces to match. Muschietti reduces the mammoth novel that clocked in a grueling 1138 pages to a few indelible quotes and images in just over two hours. Interestingly, he ensures it is very scary, and not just in a jump scare or typical gory slasher way; but generates actual tingles. This makes it one of the most memorable or simply the best film adaptations of King’s novels.

Characters

It’s in the summer of 1988 in the tiny known as Maine. A group of the less-popular, nerdier kids are hopeful of picking fights with the local bullies. In the movie’s opening scenes, most events are dramatized with chilling precision. The director does a pretty good job depicting every character as an individual; apparently, failure to know these characters means not comprehending what scares them as well as the audience. In the group, Sophia Lillis (Beverly) is the lone girl whose fear of menstruation and puberty driven by her abusive father, who behaves in a suggestively sexual way toward her, makes her live a nightmare life at home. However, she’s seemingly better developed, considerate and smart who often keep to herself. Chosen Jacobs (Mike) is the token black kid who resides on a close by farm, where most of his duties involve the most taxing jobs farmers have to put up with. Nicholas Hamilton (Henry Bowers) who is not your usual harmless ill-advised delinquent and is seemingly the boys’ chief nemesis. There’s Jaeden Lieberher (Bill Denbrough) with a stutter he can’t control, but the quieter and more thoughtful member of the group; he is still reeling from the most past family misfortune – disappearance of his younger brother George (Jackson Robert Scott). Finally, there is Finn Wolfhard (Richie Tozier), the wise guy comedian, and the gangly Jewish kid Stanley Uris (Wyatt Olef), whose religion puts him in the minority group in the town. Other characters include Ben.

The Shape-Shifting Monster

The spine-tingling intensity of the movie engulf scenes as things get gory; characters are impaled, stabbed, terrorized and beaten with blunt objects and rock by a shape-shifting pennywise, leaving behind bloody remains. The pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) is a scary circus clown, a creature with blood-like teardrops or stripes running from the eyes to the lips. The insatiable, inter-dimensional predator whose arrival is at times announced by a menacing, free-floating balloon often lives in the town’s sewers. When the teenage characters learn that the predator in the title has ill intentions to the local residents, and eat the local people, mostly kids, they endeavor to stop the evil afflicting the community. Gut-grabbing scenes unfold as the pre-adolescents try to get the bottom of the nameless demon.

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The Verdict

Perhaps Andy Muschietti and the screenwriters have done Stephen King’s epic ambition and thinking justice by this film. Though you can hear a fair bit of sex-related talk and with language that is relatively strong riddled with a lot of swearing coming from the teen actors such as “f**k” “s**t”, and more, the film is the perfect content for teens, but it’s not for the faint of heart or the sensitive viewers. However, the story may be considered misfit by parents of early teenagers who are still going through the awkward pre-puberty years. Despite the films other minor shortcomings as perceived by critics, it is gaining more streams daily on ShowBox for PC and most viewers are impressed. It is, therefore, no doubt that the 2017 Stephen King’s ‘IT’ Movie is exciting, creative, and dark- and well worth a few hours of your time.